Cops break public records law (will not give Public Records)

NORTH COUNTY ---- Police departments locally and throughout California scored miserably in a sweeping statewide exercise that found most routinely break the law when people ask to inspect public records, according to a report being released today.

Law enforcement agencies in Oceanside, Escondido and Temecula received failing grades for their handling of several public records requests during the exercise last month, and the Vista sheriff station didn't do much better in getting a D, the report states. Carlsbad and Lake Elsinore police each earned a C. Murrieta was one of only a handful of agencies across the state to receive a B.

The average grade for agencies in San Diego and Riverside counties, and for the state as a whole, was an F.

It was a disturbing snapshot of the obstacles the general public faces in seeking to look at or make copies of records they have a fundamental right to review under California law, said Terry Francke, general counsel for Californians Aware in Sacramento and long-time advocate for open government.

Most records are public under the California Public Records Act and other state laws, although exceptions are made to avoid compromising investigations and invading the private lives of police officers.

However, when presented with requests to inspect ---- and in a few cases make copies of ---- records that are generally supposed to be available under the law, most agencies did not provide them. Some illegally required participants in the exercise to provide identification and divulge their employers, others sent participants to other city departments to hunt for records and still others cited nonexistent restrictions.

"Until the results have been sifted more carefully, it is impossible to say whether legislation is in order to correct these striking failings," Francke said. "Legislation cannot compel common sense, courtesy or a sense of professionalism and responsibility, whose presence in most of these departments would have made so much difference. But training is clearly in order."

Francke, whose nonprofit advocacy group organized and directed the exercise, said the group intends to encourage training for police employees to improve their knowledge of and compliance with public record laws.

Police officials attributed the failings to a variety of reasons, including lack of training for the employees, and in some cases volunteers, who greet the public at front desks of agencies. Oceanside police Chief Frank McCoy said, for example, that in his city most public records are handled by the city clerk and consequently his staff isn't as familiar with record laws.

Other officials said that they are trying to walk a fine line between the privacy rights of officers and the public's right to know, and that records laws aren't always easy to interpret.

"It is not as clear as, when the light turns red you stop at the limit line," said Murrieta police Capt. Steve Porter.

The exercise targeted 216 law enforcement agencies large and small in 34 counties, including San Diego and Riverside. Volunteer participants were mostly media workers, including a reporter from the North County Times, who requested the documents as run-of-the-mill residents rather then representatives of the press.

Generally, the smaller agencies tended to respond to the requests in a more comprehensive fashion, with the tiny Dixon Police Department in the upper Central Valley earning the state's top score of 94 with a courteous and thorough response.

"My impression is that the smaller departments didn't seem disposed to haggle over what was their legal responsibility and put the emphasis on customer service," Francke said.

"The grade is really unfair," said Robert Faigin, special assistant to San Diego County Sheriff Bill Kolender, in referring to Vista's score. "This was a task that had some flaws in its design. It was basically set up for agencies to fail."

Faigin said the exercise was particularly unfair to large agencies like his that have multiple offices.

"Our records department is down here in Kearny Mesa for the entire county," he said.

While in Vista, a reporter was told that requested crime and arrest records for the period Nov. 1-15 were unavailable because media log entries only covered the most recent two weeks of reports. Items requested in writing were not provided, although efforts were made to contact the requester promptly and to gather information.

Faigin said the exercise resulted in agencies spending countless hours of taxpayer-funded time processing what he said were exhaustive requests.

Escondido Mayor Lori Holt Pfeiler did not offer excuses for her city's failing grade.

Escondido scored poorly because the city's police referred a reporter to a Web site rather than providing any reports to inspect, and never responded to a letter requesting 10 items in writing.

"This response is not acceptable," Pfeiler said. "I don't know if this was an aberration or not, but the public should be able to walk in and ask for information and get it."

The mayor said the city would use training and, if necessary, revise department procedures to ensure that its police respond better in the future.

"This is a good exercise," Pfeiler said. "It's good that you have an organization that is paying attention because we want to provide good service."

Carlsbad officials chose to release a statement rather than give interviews. In it, police spokeswoman Lynn Diamond wrote: "The city of Carlsbad and its police department work diligently to maintain the balance between the citizens' right to privacy and the public's right to know. Based on the report summary that was presented to us, we will review our current public records release practices and make modification if needed."

In Carlsbad, employees were helpful in providing crime and arrest information, but only after demanding that the requester reveal his occupation, which is illegal. Carlsbad scored satisfactory marks overall after providing most items requested in writing, within the 10-day timeframe prescribed in state law.

The public records exercise, which Californians Aware described as an audit of compliance with the California public records laws, was patterned after similar projects in California and 10 other states, Francke said. He said in an earlier interview the first such exercise was conducted in Indiana in 1997.

This most recent project, the largest undertaken in the United States, was built around a mobilization of 65 volunteers, most of them journalists from 28 newspapers and three television stations, Francke said. Reporters from the North County Times and Channel 10 (KGTV) visited agencies in San Diego County while The Press-Enterprise visited Riverside County agencies.

Each journalist walked into police departments on Dec. 4 and, as regular residents, asked to see several different types of records. They did not identify themselves as reporters. Three public records requests were made orally. Two entailed reports of burglaries, sexual assaults and armed robberies and arrests in connection with those crimes from the first half of November.

Then each reporter handed the agency a letter containing the 10 additional requests. Those were aimed at learning how much money had been paid to police officers last year, whether some hold down second jobs and how much their agencies spent on their workers compensation claims, as well as their most recent death-in-custody reports.

"We were scoring them on records where there should be no dispute on their public character," Francke said.

Francke maintained the project was not a self-serving exercise to advance journalists' ability to get more information, but rather a sincere effort to test the experience of the citizen unaccustomed to seeking documents. That, he said, is why it was disturbing to find that many agencies wanted to know one's affiliation and purpose.

"The law does not allow public agencies to make up their own conditions of access," Francke said. "Literally, it is none of the officers' business who you are or why you want the information."

Journalists and attorneys do not enjoy special access, he said. The general public has as much right to view records as those professionals do.

Both identification and job affiliation were required by people working front desks at police agencies in Carlsbad, Lake Elsinore, Murrieta and Temecula, while Vista required a volunteer to produce a driver's license, according to the report.

Carlsbad Police Department receptionist Diane Anderson told a North County Times reporter that the person had to identify his occupation in order to get the green light to look at records, and that the agency doesn't "let just any citizen who walks in off the street" see documents.

According to the report, the worst example of illegally attaching conditions was in Sacramento County, where a sheriff's employee asked a volunteer to provide his social security number so he could be checked for possible outstanding warrants ---- and arrested if found to have any.

At Escondido, customer service representative Sandra Sutton told a reporter that no crime and arrest reports could be viewed there and referred him to a Web site.

Francke said state law forbids agencies from requiring people to request documents online or in writing.

"Maybe that is where the law should be, but that is not where the law is now," he said.

At Oceanside, records supervisor Jennifer Kelly stated that, as of Dec. 4, it was already too late to view crime reports for the Nov. 1-15 period because it had been more than 72 hours since the crimes had been reported. Francke said no such restriction exists in state law.

Kelly also declined to accept the letter and referred the reporter to the Oceanside city clerk's office a few miles away.

McCoy, Oceanside's chief, said the city clerk is in fact the keeper of most police records. But he said the proper response would have been to take down the request and process it through the city clerk, then contact the requester when the requested information has been retrieved. He said training will emphasize that approach.

"If it is information about the department itself, then we think the reasonable standard is not to send people across the street or across town or across the county, but to take responsibility to assemble this information and provide it for the person who is asking for it," Francke said.

Oceanside Councilman Jack Feller promised to improve the city's handling of records.

"One of our main functions of the city should be to ensure that the public is, in a timely fashion, given the requested information that they ask for," Feller said. "It sounds like that didn't happen. I'll do everything in my power to make sure it does happen going forward."

Despite the mistakes made, McCoy stressed that no harm was intended by the department's employees.

"We have really good employees at our Police Department and their hearts are in the right spot," the chief said.

Most area agencies ---- with the notable exception of Murrieta, which provided most information sought in writing ---- balked at providing records pertaining to officers' second jobs, total compensation, workers compensation claims and salary schedules. Those agencies denied the release of those records on grounds that they invaded officers' privacy.

Francke, however, said the letter specifically called for measures to be taken to avoid identifying officers.

Some police officials criticized the grading system but Emily Francke, Californians Aware executive director, called it generous. "As far as their scores, that was up to them," Francke said.

Francke said the bottom line is the January 2006 state-agency exercise dramatically improved Sacramento's responsiveness to records requests, and this latest project will bring improvement, too.

- What we did: The North County Times, along with dozens of other news agencies throughout the state, partnered with the First Amendment advocacy group Californians Aware last month to find out if local law enforcement agencies were complying with state public records laws. Reporters from news agencies requested public records as run-of-the-mill residents, not as representatives of the press. They recorded what happened next, and submitted each agency's response to Californians Aware. The Sacramento-based group compiled the results and graded each agency on how well their responses complied with state law.

- What we found: Almost all North County agencies scored failing grades for their responses to public records' requests. Some did not respond, others illegally asked for identification, still others cited nonexistent regulations prohibiting the release of some records.

REASONS FOR THIS:
--They are afraid they will be sued for "Invasion of Privacy
--They just had a "Used Car Dealer" Attorney General that made a rule that Felon's conviction records would not be released.
--Agencies are forced to hire incompetent personnel, because of AffirmativeAction goals
--Many clerks are simply lazy.

" "Legislation cannot compel common sense, courtesy or a sense of professionalism and responsibility, whose presence in most of these departments would have made so much difference. But training is clearly in order."

WOW - did they just say in writing that there is a complete absense of "...common sense, courtesy or a sense of professionalism and responsibility..."

Gee, who would have guessed that about our law enforcement agencies?

7 posted on 01/12/2007 5:27:34 AM PST by JimRed ("Hey, hey, Teddy K., how many girls did you drown today?" (Hello, I'm a TAGLINE virus. Please help m)

Other officials said that they are trying to walk a fine line between the privacy rights of officers and the public's right to know

Note to cops: The job is supposed to be about public service. Too much "us against them" here.

the agency doesn't "let just any citizen who walks in off the street" see documents.

This is how they think.

""Until the results have been sifted more carefully, it is impossible to say whether legislation is in order to correct these striking failings,"

...or prison time.

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